intégrité du travail qui relie

One of the concerns with the Work That Reconnects relates to wide-spread borrowing of its interactive exercises to use them in other settings. A number of them are often taken separately and inserted into other programs, classes and curricula as an enlivening change from the usual lecture format. Desiring to share the Work, I have, from the very begining, offered it as a "give-away," establishing no conditions or credentials for its use; but recently I worry. Is the Work That Reconnects in danger of being dismembered or trivialized when its exercises are taken out of context and often conducted in an abbreviated fashion? Do I or we, who know the depth and full range of the Work, have a responsibility to protect its integrity? And how?

These questions led us to ask what, specifically, is essential to the Work That Reconnects. What elements ensure its integrity? Which features and assumptions are basic to its transformational power? The answers we found at a facilitators retreat at San Damiano in California coincide strikingly with the conclusions reached at a recent facilitators' training in Oxfordshire in the UK. To summarize:

Two elements of the Work That Reconnects are essential to its purpose and efficacy: one is philosophical, the other methodological. The recognition of the interconnected nature of reality constitutes our basic, rock bottom premise. The Work That Reconnects is grounded in the radical interdependence of all things, as affirmed in a new paradigm science and deep ecology, as well as Buddhist, Taoist and indigenous wisdom traditions. Equally necessary to the Work is the distinctive way it unfolds. It is an inherently dynamic process, mapped and experienced as a spiral embracing four stages. It is a spiral rather than a cycle, because the unfolding stages do not repeat themselves, so much as yield fresh and often deeper understandings each time around. If the Work That Reconnects were a tree, the spiral would be its sap--keeping it upright, alive and whole from its roots to the tips of its leaves.

Now, if and as we agree to honor these essential features, we can, with integrity, offer a separate exercise (such as the Milling or the Truth Mandala or a Deep Time exercise), so long as we do the following: (1) convey how it reflects the radical interdependence of all life, (2) allow it the prescribed time, and (3) present it within the context of the Spiral. We can do that in our introductory comments and instructions and follow-up remarks. Indeed, some of the best teaching happens in the process of facilitating an exercise.